US and UK authorities are reportedly investigating $20 billion worth of crypto assets sent to a Russian crypto exchange platform.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, anonymous sources familiar with the incident say officials from the US and Britain are investigating the case as part of a crackdown on those dodging sanctions to support Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The report says the digital assets in question flowed through Moscow-based crypto exchange Garantex as the stablecoin Tether (USDT).
However, Garantex has already been sanctioned by the US and Great Britain on suspicion of illegal transactions with Russia. The sources said the $20 billion transfer appears to be one of the biggest violations of sanctions against Russia since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Tether said it has frozen all assets of entities with entities on the US sanctions list.
“With Tether, every action takes place online, every transaction is traceable, every asset can be seized and every criminal can be caught. We are working with law enforcement to do just that.”
According to the report, the US Treasury Department first sanctioned Garantex in April 2022 after saying the crypto exchange allowed its network to be abused by bad actors by following proper anti-money laundering protocols and anti-terrorist financing regulations to ignore.
Earlier this week, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it has identified and sanctioned 13 entities and two individuals responsible for circumventing sanctions and aiding Russia.
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Featured image: Shutterstock/Photobank.kiev.ua